Heads Up! 'Fireball Season' Peaks This Week

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The dramatic fireball that exploded over Russia in February got
many people wondering if there is any way to anticipate future
dazzling meteors before they appear.

Well, meteors not associated with an annual shower are certainly
tough to predict. But there are some patterns that skywatchers
can keep in mind to maximize their chances of spotting a fireball
(which technically is any meteor that shines more brightly than
Venus in the sky).

For example, springtime is "fireball season," when the number of
bright meteor sightings increases by as much as 30 percent, NASA
experts say. And the three-day stretch from Tuesday (April 23) to
Thursday (April 25) is perhaps the best time to watch for the
next prospective fireball event, which might possibly even lead
to the fall of a meteorite. [ 5
Amazing Fireballs Caught on Video ]

Over the years, some real dazzlers have been seen during this
time frame. And in at least two cases, the orbits of the
meteors were virtually identical, suggesting Earth might hit
more such space rocks when it passes through this part of its
orbit.

A river of rubble?

Is there perhaps a "river of rubble" orbiting the sun that is
populated by rather large meteoroids?

Unlike most of the annual meteor showers that are composed
chiefly of dust and sand-sized particles — such as
the Lyrids, which peaked overnight Sunday (April 21) — this
supposed fireball stream might be made up of objects that are
considerably larger, perhaps originating in the main asteroid
belt between
Mars and Jupiter or perhaps being shed by the nucleus of a
long-dormant comet.

The circumstantial evidence for such a meteor stream lies with
two brilliant fireballs that appeared during the 1960s.

One of these fireballs cast shadows over northern New Jersey on
April 23, 1962. The other was seen by thousands of people over
England, Wales and Northern Ireland on April 25, 1969 and also
dropped a 0.6-pound (0.27 kilograms) meteorite in the town of
Sprucefield, Northern Ireland.

After enough ground observations were gathered, orbits for both
objects were computed. Remarkably, the two turned out to be very
similar.

Something to “Crow” about

Both the New Jersey and United Kingdom meteors seemed to emanate
from a spot in the sky near the constellation
of Corvus (the Crow).

Corvus is a rather striking star pattern situated low in the
southeast sky around 9 p.m. local daylight time — a little
four-sided figure of fairly bright stars, like a triangle whose
top has been removed by a slanting cut.

By around midnight it appears almost due south, and by the first
light of dawn it’s disappearing beyond the southwest horizon. So
any brilliant fireballs traveling on a general south-to-north
trajectory might be related to this supposed fireball stream,
especially if they seem to come from the direction of Corvus.

Here are three other possible candidate "Crow" meteors, all of
which blazed up on the calendar date of April 25:

April 25, 1966: This brilliant exploding
meteor passed northward over New Jersey and eastern New York into
Canada along a flat trajectory. Observations were analyzed by
both U.S. and Canadian experts, who determined that the end point
of the meteor's visible path was at an altitude of around 9 miles
(15 kilometers) near Huntingdon, Quebec. Canadian astronomers
B.A. McIntosh and J.A.V. Douglas noted, "The anticlimax of so
spectacular an event is surely the failure to recover meteorites
... Much of the possible fall area is either sparsely populated
or unfavorable terrain for recovery." They suggest that part of
the meteoritic mass may have come down in the rugged Adirondack
Mountains, along the trajectory but before the end
point.

April 25, 1971: A man named James A. Lewis
reported that he and his wife heard a "thunder-like" sound in
north-Central Wisconsin. "I thought it was lightning," Lewis
wrote, "until I looked up and saw the fireball-like object
hurtling northerly through the clouds. It seemed to break up
about 30 degrees above the northern horizon." (As reported in
Natural History
Magazine, Vol. LXXX, No. 7, August-September 1971).

April 25, 2005: A fireball was seen as far
north as Portland, Maine and as far south as Long Island. A
Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman said that a number of
witnesses thought the meteor was a plane crashing in Connecticut,
the Associated Press reported at the time.

If you do plan on watching the night sky for any
prospective fireball activity this year, keep in mind that you're
going to have stiff competition from a very bright moon which,
unfortunately, turns full on April 25.

The moon’s brilliant light will squelch the light of all but the
brightest stars, but if you’re lucky enough to witness a fireball
suddenly bursting forth, it should easily be seen in spite of the
moonlight.

Also keep in mind that any potential fireball sightings are
likely to be very few and very far between. This plus that bright
moon might sound discouraging, but considering what some have
been lucky to see in the past around this time of year, it still
just might be worthwhile to spend a little time under the stars
on the nights of April 23, 24 and 25.

You never know.

Editor's note: If you snap a great photo
dazzling fireball that you'd like to share for a possible
story or image gallery, send photos, comments and your name and
location to managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New
York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for
The New York Times and other publications, and he
is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, New
York. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+.
Originally published on SPACE.com.